HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When it comes to Gulfstream Park, the tendency is to think only about 3-year-olds and the road so many have taken from south Florida into the Kentucky Derby winner’s circle over the years. And while there may be a Derby prospect or two on Saturday’s outstanding 12-race card at Gulfstream, the focus here, for a change, will be on older horses, primarily the deep and talented group ready to knock heads in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Jonathan Sheppard has been non-committal about Ever So Lucky’s status as a Kentucky Derby candidate. But if he does get to the Derby, Ever So Lucky will get there via a somewhat unconventional route after making his 3-year-old debut in Saturday’s seven-furlong Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

It would be much easier to have confidence in the two favorites for Saturday’s $75,000 Tiffany Lass Stakes, Joyful Victory and Ravi’s Song, if the race were being run a year ago.

Last March and April, Joyful Victory won a pair of stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Oaklawn Park by more than 15 lengths combined, making her the favorite in the Kentucky Oaks. And last February and March, Ravi’s Song won a pair of dirt-route stakes for older females at Fair Grounds, showing off a strong stretch kick in both races.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Two months later, trainer Leah Gyarmati still can’t believe that Well Kept lost the Pandera Stakes to Dance to Bristol here on Dec. 7 in a race that epitomized the term “photo finish.”

“I didn’t [lose], I didn’t,” Gyarmati said Thursday morning with a smile. “That was crazy.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Although HBO announced only last week that the horse racing drama “Luck” will have a 10-program second season in 2013, work has been going on behind the scenes at Santa Anita for much longer to prepare the 45 ex-racehorses used in racing scenes.

Led by trainers Matt Chew and Keith and Scott Craigmyle, the horses have been in training since the start of the year, going through gallops and daily exercise on the infield training track each morning.

ARCADIA, Calif. − Two days after he rode three consecutive winners, the fourth-ranked jockey at Santa Anita was in a much different competitive setting − staring down an Algebra II test at nearby Fernando Ledesma High School in El Monte, Calif.

Welcome to the life of Eswan Flores, apprentice jockey and soon-to-be high school graduate.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Get Stormy has run only two bad races in recent memory, Unfortunately for trainer Tom Bush, both those races came in the Breeders’ Cup.

Get Stormy will begin a journey that Bush hopes may lead to redemption in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup when he carries top weight of 121 pounds in Saturday’s $300,000 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap. The only Grade 1 grass race of the local season, the Gulfstream Turf lured a field of 11 that also includes Silver Medallion, Smart Bid, Al Khali, and Boisterous.

Thistledown plans to run 10 of its 17 stakes this year on Fridays, while its signature race, the Grade 3 Ohio Derby, will be part of a proposed two-day pick three and daily double while remaining a Saturday race in early July, officials with the Cleveland-area track announced Thursday.

A pair of 5-year-old mares, one trying to regain the form that made her a graded stakes winner two seasons ago after being sidelined for nearly a year and the other a stakes winner in each of her last two route races locally, look like the prime players in Saturday’s $100,000 Maryland Racing Media Stakes at Laurel Park.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The Grade 3, $200,000 British Columbia Derby headlines six stakes totaling $600,000 on Sept. 9 and will clearly be the highlight of the 2012 Hastings season. The 71-day meet begins April 14 and finishes Oct. 14.

Hastings has scheduled 40 stakes races worth a total of $2.45 million, a slight drop from $2.5 million in 2011 when 41 stakes races were held.